The Red Tears of Greensville

The Red Tears of Greensville

One afternoon Lincoln found on his desk a heartrending appeal for a pardon,

unsupported by the usual sheaf of letters from influential sponsors.

“What,” asked the president, “Has this man no friends?”

The adjutant at Lincoln’s side assured him that the man hadn’t a one.

“Then, I will be his friend,” said Lincoln. He signed the pardon. 1

?

“You know, when I was doing long-haul produce loads, I used to drive by prisons all the time. They used to send shivers down my spine…now I’m inside of one of ‘em.”

????????????????????????????????-Randy Cole, from a letter sent in spring, 2008.

?

I hadn’t seen or heard much of my childhood friend Randy Cole* for the past twenty years, not since his wedding. Today he’s locked up, doing seven to twenty and known only by his prisoner number, #3-------6.*??

(Note: Names have been changed, but everything else in this story is true)??????

I am visiting Randy today in Greensville Correctional Center, a medium-security prison, located in an 1100-acre wooded area just outside Jarratt, Virginia.

This is my first of two visits over a three-year span.

? For inmates, it is actually a privilege to be in Greensville Correctional Center.

A privilege for some in the short-term sense, as inmates must have demonstrated good behavior to be allowed visitors. It can be months, or years at a stretch for convicts to see a friendly face drop in for even an hour. ?

For others, the privilege is more long-term. Greensville is just a notch below maximum security, and if that level of convict has done at least twenty years, with the past few being non-disruptive, they are considered to come here to finish out their time. Here of all places, where inmate privileges are few, but even a minor liberty means something to someone who’s been in stir for decades.

Time is the measure of everything here. Inside the visiting area or beyond in cells, the inmates wait. Some wait for a visit from a loved one. Others wait for other things: A note from a lawyer, a divorce decree. A new trial. Waiting for something, anything to give them hope, or simply waiting to die.

The state’s death chamber is directly behind the four cell blocks. For some this fatal date is all they have to wait for. Even there, in the room where the lethal injection is given, a phone hangs on the wall that the condemned avoid looking upon in their final moments. Waiting for a call, the call-that might buy them time. For the three-thousand inmates in Greensville prison however, it’s one big exercise in waiting.

This is it. I think as I enter the ten-by-ten foot room with the prison guard. I eye the boxes of plastic gloves on the counter. A dirty, disposable pad is stretched out and duct-taped on the concrete floor next to the freshly painted blue cinder-block wall. This is where they strip-search visitors for contraband before being allowed to meet briefly with their loved ones. It’s for Randy, I reassure myself. No big deal. It can’t be more uncomfortable than my latest prostate exam. The door closes behind me and the guard looks over the paperwork I filled out in the waiting area.

“Stan’ up against an’ face the wall an’ straddle the pad on the floor.”

The guard stands behind me and pats me down carefully. My stomach tightens as he loosens the snap on my jeans, pulls the zipper down, but is satisfied to stop there. I zip up and exhale a deep sigh of relief.

I have left everything of value in my car trunk except for my wallet, which the guard takes, along with my $20 dollars in quarters-the limit allowed in to buy sodas and snacks from the vending machine. He puts the wallet into a small brown paper sack. I place my wedding ring in after he silently motions to do so, twisting his own finger and pointing at the bag. The guard writes my name on it and staples it closed to keep at the front desk. Visiting rules are simple. No outlandish dress, no hats. No fooling around.

“Take the quarter’s outta the roll.” The guard says flatly, handing them to me. “Hasta be outta the roll.”

I’m relieved to be out of the little room in a matter of just a few minutes. Glancing over my shoulder, I see the line to get to this point has grown to at least fifty, clutching papers, many holding small children. After passing through a metal detector and having my hand stamped with some kind of fluorescent ink, I join a group of perhaps twenty as we are escorted outdoors. We head beyond the back of the building through a series of boxed-in, industrial-type chain-link gated areas. Each gate opens mechanically before and behind us with a loud buzzer and the guards’ voices crackling on radios.

The last gate opens with a loud CLANK and rolls open, leading to a plain white bus parked on a gravel road that will shuttle us to one of four prisoner’s compounds, or pods. My paper indicates that my old friend is in ‘C’ pod.

I’m almost oblivious to the fifty-plus crowd visiting inmates at the pod entrance in Greensville, who mostly keep to themselves besides the occasional nervous, albeit nosy question that goes unanswered. “What’s your man in here for?”

After walking through another series of enclosed gated areas and into the pod, we pass through an antechamber of more blue painted cinder blocks where we all remove and re-tie our shoes. A final inspection for contraband. We’re escorted one at a time into a school cafeteria-looking room. Hard plastic chairs are arranged in tiny clusters of L shapes facing an elevated platform. Each set of chairs has a small round K-Mart like plastic ottoman that serves as a table. Guards are posted at all doors, with several on the platform in front of the room. The noise is nearly deafening with loud adult voices and children’s shrieks that reverberate and echo. ?

I spotted Randy sitting inside before I entered, seeing him through the small porthole window in the entry door. His facial features haven’t changed much since he was five years old; with wide lips that stretch to cover his buck-tooth smile, which flashes for only a moment when he sees me. His thin dark hair contrasts with his pasty-white skin, and his unmistakable large, sad blue eyes. Slight, crow’s feet are the only giveaway to his age. Unlike his fragile child body I remembered, he now looks lean and strong. We embrace, just one of two allowed.

“Hey Arm.” He says softly. “I’m so sorry you have to see me like this. But damn it’s good to see you.”

Tears instantly well in my eyes. I blink them back as we sit down. With his plain blue denim pants and shirt, it is almost like we are meeting in a church basement for lunch, if it weren’t for the prisoner number branded into his shirt lapel. It sticks out like a neon sign in a bar window.

People come and go around us as their hour is up, to make room for more visitors. Randy is allowed a special, longer visit because I have come from Colorado. The guards told him anyone would be nuts to travel so far to be in this place. They certainly keep a close eye on us. Prison is a place where anything unusual gets attention: if an inmate so much as craps in the morning instead of at night it goes into someone’s logbook. Randy passes on having any snacks from the vending machine, which are in a tiny adjacent room and off-limits to inmates. He says if he doesn’t eat junk food now he won’t miss it later. So, he passes. As do I. We decide instead to each have a cold Dr. Pepper, which he savors.

We catch up on small talk. Randy is anxious to hear about my family. Anxious I’m sure, to hear anything of the outside world. We were neighbors in Colorado. His family moved in about the same time in a new, blue collar housing development. Randy, his sister, and their folks. Right across the street from our eight-kid family. I was ten, Randy five years younger.

Together, we all grew up in that slice of suburbia, playing touch football for hours in the street, or shooting hoops in the driveway. Randy’s dad was a truck driver for a grocery store chain and occasionally called in sick just to take all of us fishing at nearby lakes. My younger brothers hung out with me, and Randy hung out with them. By default, Randy became one of the family.

Forty years later, he sits in front of me, nervously rubbing his hands together and staring ahead. His emotions bubbling.

“Arm, thanks so much for the letters. You don’t know what that means in here…”

“Hey don’t mention it. I’m a writer, right? Or at least a wannabe writer. Gives me something to do when I’m on the road, stuck in hotels.”

He hung his head. “I know you think I’m ‘good ol Randy, goofy kid, and all that – but I’m not who you remember, not who you think I am. I’ve done some horrible things.”

“We all do dumb things.” I interrupt. “But I think, deep down, you still have the core of that good-hearted kid.” Randy blinks hard, looks up and tries to smile.

“Gotcha fooled then.” He says, rubbing his hands together hard. In defiance of the no-touch rules, I pat his back.

We talk for hours, which fly by. The way time steals away when you want it to slow down. We talk about the old neighborhood, or some of Randy’s mischievous hijinks he pulled growing up. Randy was the one to make the bet or take a dare. He once hit passing cars with snowballs while standing on the roof of his house. When the police showed up, he nailed the squad car too. He liked to sneak into movie houses with his pals through the side door, or fish in private lakes-just for the thrill of it. He pretended to be motorcycle daredevil Evil Kneivel, flying through the air on a makeshift ramp in the middle of our street. His equally crazy buddies took turns lying on the pavement. Human obstacles to be jumped.

On summer nights Randy reveled in knocking on poor, unsuspecting neighbor doors and then hiding in the bushes, as we all did. Kid fun. Harmless fun, mostly. Randy loved the excitement, but never did any real harm.

“We sure had some good times, didn’t we?” He said with a more relaxed look, which vanished as quickly as it came. Randy was in prison for what he said were (unspecified) reasons. His then-wife put up with a lot but had enough.

At least, that was his story, but there was much more to it than that. There always is. ?

“I know what I’m in here for.” Randy said. “You know, every con in here says he’s innocent, when they’re guilty as hell.” But my charges are much less than what I’m really paying for.” Randy pinched the bridge of his nose. “You know Arm, how we all drive and speed a little bit most of the time? And most of the time we get away with it? Or how, we roll through stop signs or park somewhere we shouldn’t? Then one day we get busted. We get a silly-ass ticket for doing 30 in a 25 mile-per-hour zone? How do we think it out? For me, I figure that for all the crap we pull, that’s our little payback, you know? Except I wish this whole thing was about a traffic stop. I wish I could roll back time. ?

“I had everything: My own business, jeez as much as I messed up, I did that well, I made some amazing trips, hell you know the produce business and truck lingo - I was a real runner.” ?

“I had a home, a hard-working loving wife, great kids, and a decent job. I screwed up, big-time. Now everything I held dear is gone. Everything. I don’t hear from anyone, even my kids.”

I try to offer some hope. “Your kids will come around. They’re grown now. You'll see. Kids avoid conflict, just as if you may remember when we were little. Think about that. When our parents got into shouting matches, what did you do, stand between them? Heck no, me neither. We hid under beds, behind furniture, in closets. Sooner or later things calmed down. After some time, things eventually got better. This is like that. Okay, on a bigger scale, but most everything heals with time, they’ll come around.”

In Randy’s letters, he had already explained it all: He ran long distant, over-the-road hauling jobs in his self-owned eighteen-wheeler rig. However, his recklessness hadn’t washed out of him. At least not yet. He pushed his hauling jobs, only to stop in Vegas and gamble for ten hours instead of resting. Then, jazzed up with booze and pills, would push on, trying to make up time but paying the price with his depleted senses. Too many instances of mismanaged time and behavior. Too much time away from home.

“The prosecuting attorney pushed the charges hard; I’m sure because I deserved every bit of it,” Randy said. “Guess I can’t hardly blame him. I ruined everything.” Amid the steady roar of the crowd around us in the visiting room, there was a long silence before either of us spoke.

I tried to ease the moment. “Geez Randy, you could have taken that whole drama to Jerry Springer, you know? Maybe what they pay would have covered your legal fees.” He looked up, and half-smiled.

Randy said, “Yeah I guess there’s worse things that get exposed there, huh?

“Thing is, I really felt so bad that at the trial they couldn’t stop me from testifying, and you know I’m not very smart sometimes, and ignored my lawyer. I spouted off what I had to say, and prosecution lawyers rip guys like me apart and twisted things around. In the end I all but gave them what they wanted right there on a silver platter. Now I’m paying for all my other sins, you know? Like that, occasional traffic-ticket thing. ‘Cept I got a lot more than I bargained for. Seems they took it easy on me, too. I could have gotten twenty to life, can you believe it? I’m supposed to feel lucky it’s only seven years. I’ll get out in a few more if I keep my nose clean.”

Our time together is interrupted by the occasional inmate check. A whistle blows sharply and a short, stocky guard yells, “Prisoner check!” All the inmates rise to near-attention while guards fan out into the rows. Each convict waits their turn and recites their name and number to the guard, who jots notes on a clipboard. Randy stands with the rest, obviously unsettled and like me, even embarrassed. It’s over in a few minutes. The guards retreat slowly, carefully to the platform. The silence grows to a dull roar once again.

In my letters to Randy, I do my best to just keep him occupied. I tell him of my work travels and sometimes pass along scripture passages from church or from my reading. I wish I was stronger in this sense. Still I try. I tell him God expects us to screw up, but the real test is how we face up to our troubles and get right with Him again. I explained to Randy in letters how he’s in good company: many apostles were imprisoned and tortured for their beliefs.

“If I understand my New Testament, “I tell Randy, “The only person in history we know with any certainty in heaven is a thief, a con, an inmate if you will.” Referring to the thieves that were crucified along with Jesus. I explain to Randy, who had little religious upbringing, how one thief mocked Jesus while the other admitted his sins and asked simply to be remembered. Jesus assured the repented thief that he would join him in paradise.

“See?” I say. “I’m no preacher, heck far from it. “But doesn’t that tell you that no matter what, there’s always hope?”

We talk some more, with one topic rolling into another. About old friends and family, about my brother who died just the year before. I learn how after I moved away from home that Randy only made it through tenth grade before dropping out. After getting his GED and a stint in the Army he started driving trucks; hauling produce and moved to Virginia after he got married. Randy talked about his kids and how he took them everywhere on weekends and helped coach their teams and – how his cooler of beer went with him everywhere and that he was pretty much constantly hammered.

That explained a lot. I remark how booze only messes up lives. I call it the ‘big lie’. “Take a couple of guys who just hate each other.” I explain. “Most times they have enough sense to steer clear of each other, right? Then one night suppose they end up at the same party and slam enough beer? You can predict what happens. All good judgment goes right out the window. Next thing you know those two guys are on the front lawn, trying to kill each other. Take away that single, alcohol factor. How many people do you suppose would ever end up here? I bet less than half, easy.”

Randy nods his head at the makeshift philosophy. Even though now we’re much closer in age there is always the factor of big-brother, little-brother hierarchy. Even after years of being in close quarters with hardened criminals he seems to hold some regard for our conversation. I don’t mean to counsel, but it comes out anyhow. I tell him this too, shall pass and explain how I wish I had the ability to help guide him through his maze of troubles.

Instead I tell him the opposite of the ‘big lies’ is truth. And the only real truth I’ve ever known comes when I pray and give my troubles to God. He blinks, disinterested, but at least feigns attention.

“God knows I’ve done enough stupid things to deserve much more punishment than I’ve received.” I say. “But all I can tell you is this, life with God as a part of my life is far better than trying to live life without God.” Randy looks up, quietly, and secretly grips my hand near the Kmart table.

“You can’t undo what you have done, my friend. All you can do when you get out of here is try to live your life in the truth. Lots of people can’t live with the booze. It makes them crazy, makes them do stupid things. If that’s the roadblock then recognize it and stay clear of it. There’s even a business-philosophy book on the topic: The Art of War, you know? – First rule: Know thy enemy.”

I’m sure Randy has heard this and more, and in a much more efficient manner with addiction therapy, classes and counseling he’s compelled to take while being locked up. But I hope the same message comes across more clearly, coming from the big brother across the street from so long ago. I don’t know what the years, in or out, have done to this man. All I know is that there was once a core of good, and I’m na?ve enough to believe the scar tissue surrounding it can be dissolved.

“These hacks here don’t care about you.” I say. “But your folks do. Your kids do.” I point to the door leading into the cinder block antechamber. “There are a lot of people out there that love you very much and want you out, soon and in one piece.” I say.?“I know, because I am one of those people.”

In the past two years Randy has only made his situation worse. He stabbed another inmate in the hand with a Bic pen when the other guy tried to grab Randy’s winnings in a card game. However, his worse transgression, at least in the prison’s eyes-was writing a letter to his now ex-wife, who he was ordered not to have any contact with. He said the letter was from his heart, a desperate effort to make amends. For the hand-stabbing (which even the other inmates viewed as justified) Randy received a month in solitude. For the letter, an additional eighteen months was tacked on to his sentence.

“That was a stupid thing to do.” He said. “I was lucky ‘cause they could have tacked on five years, or even more.”

I tell him I understand. Under the circumstances I would be tempted to do the same thing.

Our conversation topics are batted back and forth. I ask Randy how he handles the violence. Fights are a common in Greensville. Randy had written and said he got into at least a dozen brutal bouts. The fights are over anything or even nothing. Mostly, fights are about control.

“See that pack of sugar?” He points to a soiled, pink packet someone had left on the table before us. “That’s enough to get a brawl started; who it belongs to, who wants it worse. The guards don’t seem to care, seems they only get called in if there’s a shank involved or if someone’s near-dead.” In fact up to a dozen Greensville inmates are murdered each year by fellow inmates. But those are quiet statistics that don’t generate headlines. In contrast, the state legally executes about the same amount per year in the back, ‘L’ building, which everyone hears about, totaling well over 100 since the prison opened.

Randy says, “You’re only respected if you can defend yourself. The first day here I bent over to get a drink of water and someone sucker-punched me in the face. Laid me out. All I heard as I lay there with blood running down my neck and my head pounding after smashing on the concrete, was someone shouting ‘Welcome to Greensville’ – and laughter. Never did find out who it was.”

In the past few years, the attacks have become less frequent as the primal, ‘respect’ has grown.

I lean back, stretch out my arms and look around the room. Most of the inmates around us are under 30 years old. Seventy-percent have no high school diploma, and most can’t read or write beyond a sixth-grade level. Sixteen percent have some degree of mental illness. Randy fits several of these categories.

Convicts don’t look at each other for more than a passing glance. To do otherwise is almost a primal challenge, like staring at a fenced-in dog.

I notice and comment about the few older cons milling about. Randy explains they’re mostly lifers moved down from maximum security prisons to ride out their time.

“They seem okay. But I know better and steer clear of them.”

Randy excuses himself to go the bathroom, which is separate from the bathrooms used by visitors, who must leave and enter through the antechamber. Randy confides that these breaks are where exchanged contraband takes place. One-half size cigarettes are smuggled in, tucked into cleavages, which are sold on the inside for five bucks. Anything imaginable gets tucked elsewhere.

“You can get most anything in here.” Randy says softly, “For a price. As long as it isn’t metal and it fits in a (body cavity).”

“I wondered why I didn’t get the uh, full treatment on the way in.” I said. “I didn’t think about the possibility until I was led into that little room with the diaper-pad on the floor.”

“If they wanted to, they could have.” Randy said. “But it’s not a pretty job, and this isn’t a max house, so it only happens occasionally. The possibility it can happen is enough to keep the honest people honest.” He laughs softly, hoarsely.

In his letters the food at Greensville is an occasional gripe. Randy says he knows it doesn’t do much good to think about it. “It’s prison.” He says glumly. “Nothing is pleasant. In constant shakedowns they take away everything you’re not supposed to have; an extra pair of socks or blanket, anything that might make life a tiny bit more comfortable in this hellhole.”

Thanksgiving is the single exception when the cons eat well and are allowed second helpings. Every other day of the year it’s bland, low-salt fare. 1600 calories a day, period. With Thanksgiving a week away inmates’ moods are high. A few years back Randy wrote and said he volunteered to clean up the death chamber after a state execution, simply because by doing so, he could have some of the same, special last meal given to the condemned.

He never said how it went and I didn’t ask him now. But he never volunteered to do that again.

Gambling is the popular pastime in Greensville. With a TV in a central area in each pod the cons can keep up with sports. Like on the outside, the big winner is always the bookmaker. No actual money is allowed, but a con has a credit account to buy basic toiletries. Inmates work for thirty-five cents an hour credit. Randy is lucky, his dad kicks in a little money each month to his account. Most inmates have no outside support at all. Even on the inside, basic assistance is fleeting and incomplete. Randy needs glasses to read, but it has taken him six months to set up an eye exam. “It will take another eight months to get glasses.” He said.

In the meantime, my weekly letters to Randy are printed with large font. I include his favorites: Pictures of family, of mountains. Football schedules, NASCAR results; or little pin-ups of Sharon Stone or Charlize Theron-things I’d like to get, I imagine if I were in his shoes. The limit is five, 8x11 inch papers folded in a standard envelope.

Nothing else is allowed. No books, no music, no internet. In prison there are no holidays, no birthdays or celebrations other than what the inmates create for themselves, which isn’t much. Occasionally there’s a small batch of prison, toilet-brewed potato wine that gets passed around.

“It’s expensive, Randy says. ‘But on occasion, like one of my kid’s birthdays, I splurge.”

Randy and his ‘celly’ sleep during the day because it’s too noisy at night from all the yelling and screaming that echo throughout the pod.

Visitors are rare. Letters, even fewer. After all, who writes letters anymore? And yet, letters are the most anticipated thing for an inmate. Randy asked his elderly parents not to visit after the first time, years ago. He did not want them to see him like this. He also asked me not to mention details I know about to his folks when I get their occasional call. I say nothing about the prison fights, or the murders.

He is allowed to call his folks collect for a few minutes every couple of weeks but would like letters as well. Which don’t come. He worries that his now-elderly and weak mother will die while he is locked up. His folks are unassuming, and when they talk to Randy, they’ve asked why I write so much, or at all; why I even care. They’re grateful, but I’m not family.

I wonder about this myself and can only imagine the pain and the desperate loneliness, of screwing up so badly, of being locked up for so long with barely any contact from anyone on the outside. Many may see Randy as just another criminal paying his dues. All I see is a grinning, freckly-face kid on the stingray bike. And innocence lost.

One by one, the visiting room thins out, until the call comes in mid-afternoon for the final visitor bus to leave. Randy lowers his head while I mutter a quick, soft prayer. We embrace a second, final time and then he is gone. I retrace my way back through the maze of locks and gates, of emotionless guards and lonesome passageways that lead to the now-vacant asphalt lot.

Greensville prison guard towers are every bit as menacing on the way out as on the way in, with dark figures inside; pacing, and shouldering rifles. The rust from decades-old construction bolts bleed down the sides of the turrets, like tracks of red tears. I steer the rental car north, towards Richmond; to my late flight to Colorado and home.

I can’t help fix Randy’s life. I think, as thundering eighteen-wheelers pass down the highway. I drive alongside a blur of scrub oaks, past towering southern pines and scattering bursts of blackbirds. I’m not a psychologist, a counselor, or a minister…

But I have hope and wonder how to make a little difference.

…Then I will be his friend.?

1 Bob Dole: Great Presidential Humor